Insights to Software Testing Career
New to Software Testing? Been in the Software Testing career for a while? No matter how much or little experiences you have, you will always find different challenges regardless of which industry you are in, or the size of your team.
I would like to share with you some things I have learned throughout the years and hopefully this will give practical perspective of software testing.
Software Testing is very much similar to research and development where planning and analysis must take place.
The ultimate goal is to give confidence to the business owner or users that we have developed a robust system that will support their daily business activities.
There are three main factors that contribute to successful testing:
When I said 'what' doesn't mean knowing everything up front but it is something that every team member is aware the work to be done in the next days, weeks or months.
By knowing where to start we can prioritize deliverable tasks to a point where the system ready for acceptance and released to production.
Effective testing is not about executing a large number of test cases but it all about finding as many defects in the shortest time possible.
Every tester should have a good knowledge of the system functionality.
The learning process usually starts from spending time with the Subject Matter Expert then followed by reading software specifications.
Learning phase should be taken into considerations when estimating the effort to complete testing phase.
Last but not the least testers should work closely with every team members from business users, Business analyst and development team.
Good interpersonal and communication skills will surely help working in an environment where we need to liaise with people from different background and expertise.
The right answer comes from asking the right question to the right person.
In summary, career in Software Testing can be challenging yet rewarding.
Regardless the size of your organization or project, you will need to focus on these areas and everything else will fall into place.
You must first know what you need to do, learn what you need to do and communicate with your team members what you do.
I hope you find this article is useful and all the best with your career.
I would like to share with you some things I have learned throughout the years and hopefully this will give practical perspective of software testing.
Software Testing is very much similar to research and development where planning and analysis must take place.
The ultimate goal is to give confidence to the business owner or users that we have developed a robust system that will support their daily business activities.
There are three main factors that contribute to successful testing:
- Testing scope must be clearly defined;
- The knowledge of the system under test;
- Interpersonal skills.
When I said 'what' doesn't mean knowing everything up front but it is something that every team member is aware the work to be done in the next days, weeks or months.
By knowing where to start we can prioritize deliverable tasks to a point where the system ready for acceptance and released to production.
Effective testing is not about executing a large number of test cases but it all about finding as many defects in the shortest time possible.
Every tester should have a good knowledge of the system functionality.
The learning process usually starts from spending time with the Subject Matter Expert then followed by reading software specifications.
Learning phase should be taken into considerations when estimating the effort to complete testing phase.
Last but not the least testers should work closely with every team members from business users, Business analyst and development team.
Good interpersonal and communication skills will surely help working in an environment where we need to liaise with people from different background and expertise.
The right answer comes from asking the right question to the right person.
In summary, career in Software Testing can be challenging yet rewarding.
Regardless the size of your organization or project, you will need to focus on these areas and everything else will fall into place.
You must first know what you need to do, learn what you need to do and communicate with your team members what you do.
I hope you find this article is useful and all the best with your career.
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